FleytMuzik

Adrianne, I listened to your CD and LOVED it! There is no doubt in my mind that this music touches the soul and you all did a very good job in touching mine. Best wishes, Jimmy/Sir Jame Galway - internet

Adrianne Greenbaum is a national acclaimed flutist from the US who is specialised in both classical and klezmer music. She has played in many concert halls and she also is professor of flute at a college. She has recorded before on several labels and issued a solo cd called Sounds of America. She is also the founder and leader of a klezmer band and gives master-classes in klezmer music for flute. Indeed Adrianne is a master on the flute and without any problem she knows how to interprete the klezmer music in a professional and personal way. Because of the good co-operation with the other musicians she creates a full sound and each song is a pleasure to listen to. Besides that the musicians manage to make all tunes sound like they were meant to be together on a cd. They are not just fragments but brought together in such a professional way that Fleytmuzik sounds like one piece of music of almost an hour that is a pleasure to hear. - FolkWorld Magazine

Adrianne Greenbaum's expressive flute melds beautifully with the string-based ensemble to evince a gorgeously textured patina. Elliot Simon, All About Jazz - Simon/All About Jazz

I am awestruck, and am not going to waste further verbiage trying to describe what an amazing, beautiful, virtuosic album this is. If you like klezmer, or you like flute, or if you didn't know that you liked either, this will still be your favorite album for a long time. This CD, by Klezical Tradition's Adrianne Greenbaum, opens with a stunning, muscular flute doina and never stops. Covering older klezmer repertoire (although "traditional" doesn't necessarily mean, "as recorded on early '78s" or notated by Beregovski any more). There is much of that, but ensemble member Josh Horowitz, for example, spent many years wandering Eastern Europe recording and playing with local musicians. The album also includes a vibrant medley of tunes from former-Soviet klezmer turned New York klezmer, German Goldenshteyn, as well as his rocking, driving "Rusishe Sher". And, then, Greenbaum's own "Dobriden" is such a perfect period processional, despite its recent origin. Nor is this a neo-classical snob's album. The album closer, "Gelebt und Gelakht," for instance, gives everyone a chance to stretch a bit, but the thrilling flute runs that carry the piece are simply sublime. (About what you'd expect from a tune recorded by Naftule Brandwein!). Along with Greenbaum, we get a chance to hear Josh Horowitz accompany on the tsimbl, and Cookie Segelstein on violin, and get a sense of how klezmer might have sounded, at its best, 100 or 200 years ago, before klezmer horns, before Americanized klezmer, before the clarinet became the main solo instrument. It's classical klezmer, if you will.
It's classical klezmer featuring a variety of vintage flutes for the perfect period sound. But this is also classical music grounded in dance tradition. Playing the older wooden flutes makes a difference. This music swings. It also has power. And yet, it is also very modern. It blows my mind to the possibilities of klezmer the way Andy Statman and Zev Feldman's groundbreaking "Jewish Klezmer Music" of 20 years ago made me first excited about klezmer. (Would the fact that bassist Marty Confurious played on that recording, and on this one, suggest that this is not coincidence?) What is certain is that this album makes clear how good a flute can make klezmer sound, and how perfectly it works with tsimbl and bass and fidl. Mostly, though, this is Greenbaum's album. Her flute playing is inspired. It rocks. Even on the most intricate, quiet, classical passages, this is the sort of playing that makes clear how much of a difference amazing musicianship makes. This is amazing musicianship. This is the sort of album that defines a sound and a standard, the way that Alicia Svigal's "Fidl" defined klezmer fiddle for many, years ago, and this is accomplished by going far back to klezmer's pre-American roots. The CD also includes some nice notes about the history of the flute, and the klezmer flute. What an amazing, profoundly essential CD! What a beautiful, wonderful, gift. This CD is instantly part of my "essential klezmer" collection. Ari Davidow Klezmershack.com
- online: Klezmershack.com

I can't think of a stronger case being made for the flute as an essential klezmer instrument (besides the historical fact that Old World kapelyes often included flutes) than this album, particularly Adrianne Greenbaum's spirited playing on her own composition, 'Di Terkishe Fleyt,' which boasts the soulful vibrancy, wit and virtuosity of the great clarinetists like Brandwein and Tarras. With tsimblist Josh Horowitz, fiddler Cookie Segelstein and bassist Marty Confurius, Greenbaum has assembled a gorgeous neo-traditional ensemble of classical proportions. Call her the Andy Statman of the klezmer flute. -- Seth Rogovoy, author, "The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music" - SingOut Magazine

Thanks very much for your presence last week, it certainly enriched our week. For some of my students and I suspect others, this was their first exposure to klezmer. Your noon class, in particular, conveyed the fun and inventiveness of klezmer and was just right. The concert with your superb colleagues put klezmer on a very high level of musicianship and was very beautiful. Shulamit Magnus, Jewish Studies, Oberlin College - Oberlin College "review"

Adrianne's performance was received VERY well at the conference. She brings a lot of vitality to her performances, and the audience responded favorably, calling her back to the stage for three ovations. There was a great deal of variety to her repertoire--from songs to dances.
All of her books of Klezmer music and her CDs sold out very quickly. (If you haven't heard her play, her CD is at www.cdbaby.com -- and it's really good!) Shelley Collins, Associate Professor, Delta State University
- Shelley Collins, Delta State